The Essentials of Assessment Validation: Guide to Validating Assessments

The Essentials of Assessment Validation: Guide to Validating Assessments

Blog Article

RTOs face many tasks after registration, such as annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, but validation is typically the most daunting.

Although we have published several articles on validation, let’s revisit the term. ASQA describes validation as a quality review of the assessment process.

Validation is the process of confirming accurate areas in an RTO's assessment process and pinpointing elements for improvement. With a correct understanding of its components, it’s less daunting.

Clause 1.8 of the 2015 SRTOs indicates that RTOs need to ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, are compliant with training package requirements and conducted in accordance with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

The standards mandate two types of validation.

The initial validation type checks that your RTO's assessments align with the training package requirements.

The subsequent validation confirms that assessments are conducted according to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.

It indicates that validation occurs both before and after the assessment. The focus here is on the first type: assessment tool validation.

An Overview of the Two Types of Assessment Validation

The Basics of Assessment Validation

As mentioned earlier and in our earlier blogs, validation is split into two parts: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.

Pre-assessment validation or assessment tool validation focuses on the first part of the clause, ensuring that all unit requirements are met and that workbooks are entirely compliant.

In post-assessment validation, the emphasis is on implementation, ensuring that Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments as per the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

For this piece, our emphasis will be on assessment tool validation.

Guidelines for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation

Now that we understand the two types of validation, let’s explore the details of assessment tool validation.

When Assessment Tool Validation Should Be Done

Assessment tool validation ensures that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are included in your assessment tools.

Therefore, any time you obtain new learning resources, assessment tool validation should be completed before students use them.

You don’t need to wait until the next scheduled validation in your 5-year cycle. Immediately validate new resources to ensure they’re ready for student use.

However, there are additional reasons to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation also when you:

- when resources are updated
- new training products are added by you on scope
- when course is reviewed against training product updates
- identify your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment

The risk-based regulatory approach of ASQA requires RTOs to perform regular risk assessments. Student complaints about learning resources indicate it's time for assessment tool validation.

How to Choose Training Products for Validation

Recall, this type of validation aims to ensure all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs must validate each unit's resources.

Key Resources for Assessment Tool Validation

Course Materials

To validate your assessment tools, you will need the complete set of your learning resources:

Mapping tool – the first document to review. It indicates which assessment items meet unit requirements, aiding in faster validation.

Learner/student workbook – assess its appropriateness for use as an assessment tool. Verify clear instructions and adequate answer fields. This is often a gap.

Assessor guide/marking guide – confirm that instructions for assessors are adequate and clear benchmarks for each assessment item are present. Clear benchmarks are crucial for reliable assessment outcomes.

Other related resources – may consist of checklists, registers, and templates developed independently from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they suit the assessment task and address unit requirements.

Validation Team

Clause 1.11 specifies the criteria for validation panel members, indicating that validation can involve one or more persons. RTOs usually require all trainers and assessors to participate, sometimes including industry experts.

Together, your validation panel should possess:

Vocational competencies and industry skills relevant to the unit being validated

Up-to-date knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning

Any one of the following training and assessment qualifications:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the successor version

Validation tool/template
Having a validation tool helps you with both the validation process and documentation. Using a validation tool makes it easier to look at how each assessment item maps against each unit requirement.
A validation tool aids in both the validation process and documentation. It helps visualize how each assessment item meets each unit requirement.
At the same time, it can serve as your document evidence that you have validated your resources before letting the students use them.
Simultaneously, it provides documentation that you have validated your resources before students use them.

ASQA does not specify a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates are accessible online. These tools usually have validators review the tools in their entirety to ensure they meet the principles of assessment.

Assessment Principles Template Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable

While such templates facilitate validation, they often result in judgment errors because there’s insufficient space for comments on each assessment item.

A more detailed template is highly recommended for inspecting each unit requirement and the assessment items that align with them. Below is an example:

Element Performance more info Criteria Assessment Instructions Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Requires Checking?

As we covered in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, your assessment tools must ensure trainers adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.

Basic Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access offered to everyone in the assessment process?

Flexibility – Does the assessment offer various options to demonstrate competence based on different needs and preferences?

Validity – Is the assessment assessing what it is supposed to assess? Is it a valid tool for measuring the required skill or knowledge?

Reliability – Will the assessment achieve consistent results every time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently decide on skill competence?

Basic Rules of Evidence

Validity – Is the evidence proof that the candidate possesses the skills, knowledge, and attributes described in the unit of competency and associated assessment requirements?
Sufficiency – Is there enough evidence to ensure that the learner has the skills and knowledge required?
Sufficiency – Is the evidence adequate to ensure the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

Authenticity – Is the assessment tool confirming that the work is the candidate’s own?

Currency – Are the assessment tools in line with current units of competency and contemporary industry practices?

Although these are regularly covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools still struggle to meet these requirements.

To avoid employing learning resources that fail to meet all unit requirements, be sure to follow these guidelines:

Live Up to Your Words

Pay close attention to the verbs in the unit requirements and ensure they are addressed by the assessment item. For instance, in the unit CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers, one performance evidence requirement requires students to:

Perform each of the following at least once with two different babies under 12 months old in a safe environment, using age-appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication in accordance with service and regulatory requirements:

nappy changing

bottle preparation, feeding infants from bottles, and cleaning equipment

solid food preparation and feeding babies

appropriately respond to infant signs and cues

prepare infants for sleep and settle them

monitor and encourage age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills

Getting students to describe changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t meet the unit requirement. Unless the requirement assesses underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be performing the tasks.

Heed the Plurals!
Pay attention to the numbers. In our example on one of the unit requirements of CHCECE032, this single unit requirement calls for the students to complete the tasks at least once on two different babies under 12 months of age. Having students complete the tasks listed twice on just 1 baby won’t cut it.
Pay attention to the numbers. In our CHCECE032 example, one unit requirement requires students to complete the tasks at least once with two different babies under 12 months old. Doing the tasks twice with one baby isn’t sufficient.

Entire or Not Competent

Pay attention to lists. Again, as illustrated above, if students perform just half the tasks listed, it’s non-compliant. Each assessment item must address all requirements, or the student is not yet competent and the assessment tool is non-compliant.
Can you be more specific?
Be Clearer

Each assessment item should have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Hence, it’s important that your instructions do not confuse students or assessors. For instance:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What details can be included in a work package?

Possible answers include:

Mandatory resources

Corresponding costs

Length of activities

Assigned functions and responsibilities

When an assessment item requires multiple answers, indicate the number of answers needed from a student. This way, your assessment is reliable, and the evidence collected is valid.

This is true for assessment items with double-barrelled questions or questions requiring more than one answer at the same time. These can confuse students and assessors, as shown in the sample question below:

Identify a hazard and/or environmental issue in the work area and select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.

Answers could include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering controls, PPE

Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolation, use of engineering controls

People – isolating, use of engineering controls, administration

Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, use of engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering, administrative controls

Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering, administrative controls

Avoiding double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and allows assessors to judge competence accurately.

Considering these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers have audit guarantees?” But these guarantees mean you have to wait for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This impacts your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take a safe and compliant approach.